Buying horse property (no facilities)... where would you start?

[netg]

My mom and I have wanted to live on the same property with our horses for about 20 years now. This weekend she's making an offer on a place. Money's limited for facility building, as right now there's no way we're selling our homes; however, the rental market is strong for each of our current homes and she'd be paying cash on this place, so most likely our monthly bills are about to drop a lot due to not paying mortgages or board.

That said, I should be able to save up to build more of what we want within the next couple of years without a problem. We just need to figure out what we feel we need prior to moving in, and we'll plan out what to do at each following stage.

We are in Tucson, so we don't need protection from winter storms, but need good ventilation for summer time.

We don't know if we'll get this place, but most places we're looking at are just over 4 acres, and relatively flat. The place we're hoping to get is a rectangle, about 3 times as deep as it is wide, with the house along the middle of a long side. The front part of the land has no trees and is almost perfectly flat, and the driveway is along the edge - so naturally perfect place for an arena. On the opposite long side from the house there are some trees, but a lot of clear space - so we think that's where we'll ideally want a barn. Trees around the runs from the stall would be nice, or in areas we tack up, etc. The back third of the property is not quite as flat, lower in general, and there's more vegetation/ water runoff - so we see that as the field/turnout area.

We'll definitely get weeds/cactus cleared out, leveling done where needed, etc., right away. I think the natural footing will work for riding after a little work -it's soft but not too deep.

I think before we get the horses there, we need to have the entire property fenced to help keep dogs in and predators out, as well as contain any horses who get loose. Coyotes, mountain lions, bobcats, etc., are all possibilities in the area.

There's already water there, and we'll have the horses close enough to be able to run a hose from a spigot at the house to their buckets if we don't end up with a barn right away so don't want to get plumbing to the area yet.

We can easily get away with pipe corrals with shades for now, but if we do that we need to have at least some turnout area fenced, as one of the prime motivators to get a place now is the chance to turn our horses out for hours at a time instead of the limited amounts available at most boarding places in town.

We've looked at lots of options from steel buildings we put stalls up in to real horse barns (I dream about a horse barn with apartment upstairs for me to live in...), to portastalls, or just mare motels. Any suggestions of configurations to keep in mind are very welcome, as well as brands of fencing, etc.

Right now we're thinking of a mesh wire type fence around the property with bamboo growing alongside it (knowing we have to pick type of bamboo carefully, as it can overwhelm everything.) Living in the desert with a lack of trees, we want some privacy from neighbors which wouldn't otherwise be there. We haven't researched if bamboo can be dangerous to horses yet (of course we will prior to putting any kind of vegetation in!), so if anyone has feedback please chime in. We've seen it at a lot of stables here, as it survives the AZ weather quite well.

A round pen would probably be helpful, but since we intend to have the horses getting turnout regularly and they longe well on a line, we don't think we need that right away. Of course we need somewhere for feed immediately, though. As for tack - there are going to be three empty bedrooms (if we get this place) so we can figure something out without a problem there! I'm thinking probably fencing the "arena" would be the last thing we need if we have all the turnout and everything we need elsewhere? I'll be shipping to lessons, so get to practice in dressage arenas elsewhere once a week, so that's not a big concern. There are also plenty of trails and trail riders so my mom should be able to get out about every day.

So, basically - anyone have advice and recommendations, both for the current limited budget and future as we can afford more? We have lived on horse property in the past, and only wish we could have the facilities we had in one of our former homes - gorgeous barn with adobe walls and double stalls for each horse, runs out the back with plenty of room to canter around, just lovely. We know what having horses on your property means as far as amount of time and care required, limitations on social life, etc., so don't worry about having to warn us about that.

I'll update this thread as we have developments, because this is quite exciting! (And if we don't get this house, we found an empty piece of property we just loved today... it would cost more in the end, but it actually had grass growing on it naturally...in Tucson.)

[poltroon]

First priority is the perimeter fence. I agree, mesh to keep dogs in. That fence will be several thousand dollars, be warned. Think carefully about how you want the perimeter fence to interface with the house and driveway. Remember that UPS trucks and guests will be coming. It's nice if the front of the house is not within the perimeter. At the very least, give yourself an apron so that you can pull in with a truck and (large) trailer and have it off the road while you fiddle with the gate.

I wouldn't worry too much about mountain lions, bobcats, coyotes. They're unlikely to bother your horses unless you're going to have minis or foals.

I put up covered pipe corrals on my place, and while I'd like to have more of them, I have no desire for a formal barn. Well, let me amend that. I have about $200,000 worth of priorities before a formal barn. Not going to happen, pretty much ever.

I set mine up with the plan that eventually they'd be in a mare-motel type format with a covered breezeway. Today, I think it's more likely that I'll just add a deep shedrow in front of the stalls and have them in a line. Mine are 12' x 18'. Costs more for that size, but I very much like them. I have doors on each end, so one side is out, the other goes out into a paddock.

You're going to want overhangs as deep as you can afford, for shade. And, before you put them in, take the time to do some ground prep so they're raised about a foot above the surrounding grade. You will be glad you did when a thunderstorm dumps on you.

The pipe corrals get wonderful ventilation and it works really well.

Okay, next you need a paddock fence inside your perimeter fence, to keep the horses off the house and out of the hay and the like. This would not need to be mesh, but it could be. It is dry enough that if you decide to try electric, you'd want to go with something like the HorseGuard bi-polar fence that doesn't depend on a ground (and moisture in the ground). Could also consider the flex-type fence from RAMM or Centaur, and of course the ubiquitous pipe panels, which are expensive but have the advantage of being very movable. Mesh or Centaur will need seriously braced posts.

For your riding area, even if you can use native soil, you'll need a tractor with some sort of harrow. Look hard for some good used equipment... new will run you $20k. Be careful not to disc it up too deep. Find someone in your area with similar soil who has solved the problem, and ask for help.

Now: a hay barn. Until now you've had the hay on pallets under a tarp and you've hated every minute of it. You'll be SOOOO glad when there's a hay barn.

Lights; a place to tie, tack and groom. For now, a headlamp will be fine for lights; you can tie to a trailer or sink a dedicated post. If you've sunk corner posts for mesh/centaur fencing, those can be used to tie. The sooner you have a place to tie in the shade, the happier you will be. You'll also want to be able to tie near water or near electricity if possible. But you don't need that day 1.

Nice to have a shed for tack and equipment... but not as necessary as you might think. A horse trailer with a dressing room makes a perfectly nice tack room - and if you're hauling out weekly, may be actively better than a permanent tack room, because your stuff is always packed. My feed is in the breezeway next to the garage, in trash cans. You may be able to just make do with a rubbermaid shed, a closet in the house or garage, whatever.

Plan for where a horse trailer can park and where one can turn around. Plan for other large trucks to come in and need to turn around, unload hay, etc. I'd suggest planning a riding track around the outside of your pasture - it's a fun place to ride and it also is an easy way to check up on everything.

An option for a quick, cheap metal building is a surplus metal shipping container. I don't know what one would cost in Tucson, but here the 20' onese can be had in the $1500 range plus delivery. They make very good clean, dry, rodentproof storage, though it can get hot in there. You can cut into it to add ventilation (people even make houses out of them), but I've never kitbashed that way.

[poltroon]

One more thing: even on the cheap, you could go through $20k easy with your initial setup of fence, gates, covered pipe corrals, grading/gravel, and the dumb stuff like trash cans and muck carts and tools that you don't currently have. Just be prepared.

Oh, sorry one more: make your fence 5' tall and buy your gates before you set the posts for your gate openings, so that you know exactly how wide they are. And do wide gates, or a pair of shorter gates, because you never know where you're going to need to get into with big equipment. I've used every inch of our 16' gate openings, because of the need to get in on various angles.

[netg]

Thanks for the great advice in both posts! I hadn't considered having the front of the house not fenced -but the front driveway/door are between the house and the closest property edge, which is also the side the driveway is on. That would work really well.

Keeping in mind routes inside the horse area for turning around should also be important. My trainer sometimes pulls her trailer with the tractor portion of a big rig (if we're mountain climbing to shows out of town) so that would be a very smart idea to keep in mind, even though I've seen her maneuver in spaces where I have trouble with just a car.

I like the idea of a path around the outside of the pastures. If we have bamboo at perimeter by the wire, a gap between that and the turnouts will make me feel better. Being able to ride around the edges when we don't have time for an actual trail ride will be nice breaks from the arena once we have a fence around the arena. (I'm not sure we'll ever have true pastures... part of the appeal of this lot is high water table/natural vegetation on one side - but we may never successfully grow enough grass to call turnouts pastures!)

Elevating the pens is also a great idea. I have a feeling as we get the land worked on we can shift some soil to both the pens and the arena area - we want to get all that taken care of at once even if the fencing isn't all up at once.

We're lucky in that there are neighbors with heavy equipment who we can probably get to do the work we need on footing. The neighbors all chip in to have them maintain the roads, and nearly everyone around has horses, so there's definitely an understanding of what folks need for arena footing, too.

We were looking at the RAMM fencing for turnouts and really like that. My horses both like to bounce off fences, not hard but enough that I worry their stops won't happen quickly enough and they'll hurt themselves running around. They haven't yet, but.... Thank you for the other suggestions so I can look them up! I'm mostly worried about bobcats because my TB thinks they are to play with - and I'd rather keep them separated so he doesn't corner one trying to play and have it go on the offensive to try to protect itself. He's also the reason I would definitely want to go 5' with fencing. He's never shown an inclination to jump the fences where we're boarded, but he definitely CAN if he wants.

One more thing: even on the cheap, you could go through $20k easy with your initial setup of fence, gates, covered pipe corrals, grading/gravel, and the dumb stuff like trash cans and muck carts and tools that you don't currently have. Just be prepared.

Oh, sorry one more: make your fence 5' tall and buy your gates before you set the posts for your gate openings, so that you know exactly how wide they are. And do wide gates, or a pair of shorter gates, because you never know where you're going to need to get into with big equipment. I've used every inch of our 16' gate openings, because of the need to get in on various angles.

We're figuring on probably putting $30k into initial setup, tools, buckets, feeders, etc., and add more over time. If I end up able to sell my house instead of renting it that would likely cover whatever else we want, for now. Because you ALWAYS want more once you think you're done, right?

I think we'll likely get a shed for hay right away. We're still going to be near feed stores (about 15 minutes) so don't need to fit a ton at once or anything, though ultimately it would be nice to get a lot at the earlier cuttings and use that through the rougher seasons. We can keep grain in the house, too - with the horses so close, it's easy enough to mix up in the house and walk out with it!


We have considered getting a steel building and putting stalls in it, or a steel ramada-type structure (RV parking style) and just pipe corral under it for now. I don't know that we would immediately, but it seems a way we could have a garage-type door or just have a lot of shade (as much as possible) while still allow ventilation. There are so many options, though, that we probably won't go over the $30k and keep in mind many of the options and try to figure out what we like best as far as barn goes. We do love the idea of a barn with dutch doors you can close to keep in warmth in winter then open all doors to let air flow during summer. So many choices, so few house purchases in one lifetime.

[poltroon]

Here are pictures of my pipe corrals and my paddock fence, for your perusal:


http://www.ponydom.com/farm/farm7.html
http://www.ponydom.com/farm/farm8.html

Our paddock fence is mesh with the Ramm fence on top. Still like it. Wish we'd tightened the mesh a bit more is all. In my case I was interested in keeping a toddler out of this corral, so used mesh even though it was an inner fence.

I'm in Northern California. We get hot, dry summer days and cool summer nights, and cold, rainy, blustery winters where we happen to be.

Oh! Water.

I'd highly recommend, if you will be confining horses to your pipe corrals, getting Nelson or other automatic waterers. Otherwise, you'll be at work, someone will ask you to dinner, and you'll be panicking worried about the horses having water. Even three buckets aren't enough.

If they won't be confined that way, get nice big tanks for your paddocks. We have a 300 gallon rubbermaid tank in each space, stocked with goldfish. One of them is able to straddle a fence line (would have to plan ahead to do that with mesh though). I can still add buckets that are changed daily (although they seem to prefer fish water), but I no longer worry about them going dry if we're out late or even for a quick overnight.

When you buy hoses, go right for the heaviest duty lifetime hoses and plan to cash in on the warranty.

[netg]

I like your fence! That was the other option we like for turnouts besides just flex fence or something similar. Your corrals are great - we'll likely end up with something in that style, at least for a while.

As for water - the place we're hopefully getting is on a shared well. We are checking into limits, but are pretty sure there are none on how much water we can use/month. However, it's an electric well, meaning we don't want auto waterers, because if power goes out that means no water. We will probably have some sort of storage tank on site in case power goes out over a significant period of time. Typically, that doesn't happen, but we don't want to take a chance with the horses! We'll likely use barrels for water in the pens and something larger in the turnouts, so we are sure they have enough if we miss a morning/evening watering due to rushed timing or something. We "grew up" having to do that for our horses, so are used to regular dump and cleanings, etc. It's more maintenance, but to be sure our horses have enough water it's worth it!

[poltroon]

Investing in the water tank is definitely worth it. We have one with an ozone system. But... that was another $5k.

We still lose water if we lose power, but, we have water for a while even if our well has a problem, and if we lost all power we'd still have a tank of water we could fill buckets from. Wouldn't enjoy it, but we wouldn't die of thirst.

Also, put a pressure tank on every pump that you have. Those will still keep your water flowing with no power until you exhaust the capacity of the tank, and it significantly extends the life of the pump.

If power outages are frequent, or if you have reason to worry that outages can be particularly long, you can also look into adding solar panels for the well.

[netg]

So we found a steel building - 36x40, tall. It has four 16x16 doors, so will have a LOT of airflow if we want it to - which we will most of the time, but maybe not always in winter.

We're thinking stall panels set up in them.... have any favorite companies? There are some good looking stalls out there, but I don't know if some are higher quality than others/some are to avoid.

We'll likely do a center aisle, but have the end stalls have doors into a large turnout area, and rotate the horses so they each get time out there.

[shawneeAcres]

Here is a picture "diary" of the barn we built. We live in a very HOT AND HUMID climate so ventilation is #1. I designed this barn with that as top priority. We had the "shell" put up by "Carolina carports" to my specifications, which took two days, then we built the stalls ourselves.

http://good-times.webshots.com/album/569459911nWMeoO

[netg]

So I thought I'd give an update on our place, since it's somewhat near completion... if our roof ever gets delivered!

The steel building turned out to be more of a roof and one side, despite advertised conditions... so money back, find something else...

We ended up spending well over our intial thoughts, and instead of going for just pipe corral panels/mare motel configuration as we originally thought, we went pine barn with a steel roof (which isn't here yet)....

This is the view out my window when we had our VERY unusual snow... The footers for the barn show at the bottom edge of the photo - and I love the mountains behind it. (We can see every mountain range across the city, and Mom grew up in Mountainside, NJ, and the place was bought with money inherited from her parents - so it's now dubbed Mountainside Farm as a nod to them.)
http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5215/...78bcf8b298.jpg

The edge of my horse's approx. 1 acre run. The pipe is mid-install here.
http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5016/...550682536e.jpg

Arena on the front side of the property. Initial clearing - the flattening/leveling with a blade prior to footing comes next. It will probably remain unfenced, though when we fence the property we will have the fence run along two sides of the arena. No rush there; we will be putting railroad ties along the edge on top of rock so the small amount of rain we get can run off without footing washing away.
http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5126/...797c32fc2b.jpg

Barn mid-build. There are very few real trees on the property, so we located everything to work around the few that were there. We'll be planting more in the future, too. You can see the run fencing is installed here - pipe with no-climb ended up being our final answer.
http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5062/...619fdca65d.jpg

Barn partially built - For now 1 stall will be for feed, 1 for tack, and the three horses will rotate through the other 4 stalls as needed. There will be dutch doors on the back of each stall so we can open/close them as we want. We can also choose to section off runs to be smaller and only go to one stall if needed in the future - for now, the first two stalls on the left back up to one run, and all three on the right are to the biggest (~1 acre) run. We intend to have them out all the time except the rare occasions weather or events (4th of July fireworks, possible injuries as every horse gets injured sometime) dictate otherwise.
http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4099/...e043ba3bd8.jpg

The openings above the wood/below the roof will remain open for air flow. The roof will overhang some for protection from the elements, though. We're going to have a cupola and probably put in at least one fan to also help with air flow, and most likely keep the big doors open just about all the time. You can't see the tree to the left of the barn in this shot - we'll have the wash rack right outside feeding into the tree, and the stall on the left will be the tack room - and we're going to put a used washer in there with runoff from that also going to the tree. It should do well, as these are desert trees which are used to not being watered at all, but suck up water any time any comes by.
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3357/...2dddfab04e.jpg

[LisaB]

My sister is going to be living in Vail and the rental market isn't great. Meaning there are tons of houses for even her to choose from. 3 kids, huge dog, weird cat and bad credit.
So, honestly, I wouldn't consider your rental income as helping out with your current farm mortgage at all. It would be gravy to create your horse facilities but don't rely on it.
And I've seen lots of run-ins with paddocks instead of an actual barn out there.

[LisaB]

My sister is going to be living in Vail and the rental market isn't great. Meaning there are tons of houses for even her to choose from. 3 kids, huge dog, weird cat and bad credit.
So, honestly, I wouldn't consider your rental income as helping out with your current farm mortgage at all. It would be gravy to create your horse facilities but don't rely on it.
And I've seen lots of run-ins with paddocks instead of an actual barn out there.
Ack! brain fart and didn't see the new pics! Looks lovely! Keep at it!

[netg]

My sister is going to be living in Vail and the rental market isn't great. Meaning there are tons of houses for even her to choose from. 3 kids, huge dog, weird cat and bad credit.
So, honestly, I wouldn't consider your rental income as helping out with your current farm mortgage at all. It would be gravy to create your horse facilities but don't rely on it.
And I've seen lots of run-ins with paddocks instead of an actual barn out there.

All I know is the rental market is VERY strong in the neighborhood where my house is. Like, rented within a week for as much or more than my mortgage. There is no mortgage on the new place, so we can keep paying mortgages for the old houses if we're unable to rent them out, too. Not paying board is still a significant change even after feed, vet care, etc - especially since farrier, vet, worming, and all that was already something we paid on top of board.

There are plenty of run-ins, and a pipe mare motel would have worked, too. I look forward to having the stalls come winter time (my horse doesn't grow much winter coat if blanketed/under lights) and any future injuries, as well as the events I mentioned like 4th of July where just being in the open would be scary.

[Crown Royal]

Beautiful place you're creating I live in MD, where it's humid with hard ground all summer, freezing with tons of snow all winter, and a muddy mess all over our flat property during the spring. I've always wanted to live in the west part of the US and have an open barn like that, or like poltroon.

Poltroon- if you check back on here, what exact type of mats did you put in for your stalls? I looked up the Turtle website but there are several different kinds and I want some for our wash stall. Plus I love the discount page!

[fordtraktor]

It is looking great, netg! I can't wait to see more pictures as it comes along.

I run a similar setup, stalls with Dutch doors opening to the outside. I keep them out as much as possible, and they come in to eat twice a day. We have bad winters so they do come in at night throughout much of the winter. I really like the design. I hope you enjoy yours as well!

[carolprudm]

Investing in the water tank is definitely worth it. We have one with an ozone system. But... that was another $5k.

We still lose water if we lose power, but, we have water for a while even if our well has a problem, and if we lost all power we'd still have a tank of water we could fill buckets from. Wouldn't enjoy it, but we wouldn't die of thirst.

Also, put a pressure tank on every pump that you have. Those will still keep your water flowing with no power until you exhaust the capacity of the tank, and it significantly extends the life of the pump.

If power outages are frequent, or if you have reason to worry that outages can be particularly long, you can also look into adding solar panels for the well.

One of our BEST home improvements EVER was a generator

[JanM]

If you have natural gas available then the whole house automatic generators are pricey, but during an outage are worth their weight in gold to keep A/C, water, and food storage and cooking going, plus the installed ones turn on automatically. I'm sure you could run it off of propane also, but definitely would need the big tank in case of a prolonged outage.

I also think that if you know exact locations of house or barns or other outbuildings needing service that the second step should be the trenches for underground utilities, but the first should be any fence posts that need to be placed. That way you avoid the nasty surprise of cutting utilities, and if you mark the utility lines between landmarks or some other method then it will simplify things later.

[clanter]

The edge of my horse's approx. 1 acre run. The pipe is mid-install here.
http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5016/...550682536e.jpg

Is there an expansion joint in the top rail to allow for summer heating?

Also I suggest that the fence should be grounded as it is an excellent conductor when struck by a lightening bolt

[nightsong]

Spend some time on the property learning the drainage, wind patterns, sun angles, etc., etc., etc.

[netg]

Spend some time on the property learning the drainage, wind patterns, sun angles, etc., etc., etc.

Sun and drainage are super easy. It's nearly flat with a slightly lower north end, and the drainage paths are very clearly visible. Sun = everywhere, since we have 360 days/year of sun! But the barn direction and configuration is so horses can always have shade, including how we placed back doors. They like sunbathing mid-summer days anyway, but knowing there's the option... It's placed for max airflow in the summer, but we can close it up to reduce airflow in winter. And the wind changes directions from one hour to the next, generally headed the direction of the aisle (either way in it) - so we can leave end doors open for most circulation, or close them and the horses will have wind protection if they want in their stalls, even if back doors are all open.